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Government announces winners of latest R&D competition for driverless vehicle technologies.

Government has announced winners of the second round of its CAV competition with 24 projects set to receive a share of up to £31 million, match funded by industry. 

Ideas include projects ranging from consumer vehicle platooning for transporting passengers from Stockport train station to Manchester Airport, to technology which could make any car operate autonomously. Four projects are also  specifically focused on the role CAV technology can play in energy reduction and air quality improvements. 

Yesterday’s announcements follow the launch of the first phase of government’s £100 million CAV test bed programme, launched at the end of March with a competition worth £55 million. In a speech at the recent 'SMMT Connected' Conference the Business Secretary Greg Clark outlined plans to create a cluster of excellence in CAV testing along the M40 corridor between Birmingham and London.

The test bed programme forms part of the government’s Industrial Strategy commitment to develop world-class CAV testing infrastructure. The programme will use some of the UK’s existing CAV testing centres to create a concentrated cluster of testing facilities in the UKs automotive heartland in the West Midlands, including; Coventry, Birmingham, Milton Keynes as well as Oxford and London.

CAV2 builds on the £20 million allocated to projects in the first competition, CAV1, and a further £19 million already invested by government in 2016 in three driverless car trials in Greenwich, Bristol, Milton Keynes and Coventry. A third CAV competition (CAV3) is due to be annouced later in the year. 

CAV2 projects awarded funding

• HumanDrive
• 5*StarS: Automotive Cyber Security through Assurance
• Smart ADAS Verification and Validation Methodology
• Multi-Car Collision Avoidance
• Self-organising Wide area Autonomous vehicle Real time Marshalling
• CAPRI
• Project Synergy
• Connected Fully Integrated Driver Ecosystem
• Anytime, Anywhere Low Cost Localisation
• Vote3Deep
• Non-Intrusive Vehicle Monitoring System (NiVMS)
• Connected Autonomous Sensing Service Delivery Vehicles
• Using Machine Learning and AI to explore systems for costing and managing Mobility as a Service
• Cambridge Autonomous Bus System Feasibility Study
• Advancing UK Autonomous Vehicle Radar Sensing Technology
• Secure CAN with Q-PUF5G Millimetre-Wave Connectivity to Cars
• Quantum-based secure communication for CAVs
• Project Alloyed
• Requirement Evaluation of CAV Location Performance and Platform Development
• City-Compatible Commercial Automated Ride Sharing
• Real Time NOx calculation in LCV and HGV diesel vehicles using OBD real time engine data
• ESCIPODS
• Autonomous and Connected vehicles for CleaneR Air